Channel opening gets mixed reviews
BY DAN PARKER SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

With a ribbon cutting at Packery Channel scheduled for Friday, Oct. 6, Port Aransans voiced mixed opinions about how the channel will affect the town's tourism industry.

Some believe Packery Channel will lure a little bit of business away from Port Aransas, but it's hard to find anyone who believes Packery will rob Port Aransas of so much business that the town will suffer much.

Some believe Packery actually will help Port Aransas in the long-run.

"I think initially, once they get some of their infrastructure (including a planned resort) in, it might hurt us a little bit," said Becky Corder, owner of Port Aransas Realty and chairman of the city's Planning and Zoning Commission. "It would be a new product with a new thing to offer, so it would be competition.

"But I think eventually the whole (area) will sort of grow together," Corder said. "If you have a bunch of restaurants in a row, at first it appears it might hurt everyone's business. But eventually, it helps everyone's business because it draws more people to the area."

Historically speaking, Packery Channel is a natural pass that has been silted shut almost constantly since 1923. Over the years, it has opened only occasionally and for relatively short periods due to hurricanes and dredging attempts.

Developers, government officials and ordinary residents in Corpus Christi debated repeatedly during the past 30 years whether to make a serious effort to dredge the channel. The idea was to create access to the Gulf of Mexico for boats at North Padre Island. It would be the only Gulf access in the entire Corpus Christi region besides the Aransas Pass at Port Aransas. Proponents said it would spur economic development.

In April 2001, Corpus Christi voters passed a measure that created a tax increment finance district that would raise money to dredge the channel.

Construction began in August 2003. Nearly two years later, the Corps of Engineers had dredged most of the channel when tides and wave action from Hurricane Emily in July 2005 took things one step further and opened the channel completely, said Andrew Smith, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project engineer in charge of construction at Packery. Emily struck about 50 miles south of the Mexican border, but the storm strongly influenced tides and wave action throughout much of the Texas coast.

Boaters have been motoring in and out of the channel ever since Emily struck, Smith said.

Besides dredging thousands of tons of sand to make the channel 14 feet deep, the $30 million channel project has meant construction of two jetties from more than 100 tons of limestone and about 66,000 tons of granite, Smith said.

Smith said workers currently are putting finishing touches on the channel work. He expects to wrap things up by the end of this month.

Developer Paul Schexnailder, who owns a large amount of property near Packery Channel, has said that a company wants to build a large resort with restaurants, homes, hotels and shops next to Packery Channel. The development would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars and bring a lot of jobs, according to supporters.

If the development becomes reality, proponents say, it will inject new economic vitality into Padre Island and greatly improve Corpus Christi's tax base, since Padre Island lies inside the Corpus Christi city limits.

The channel probably already is taking at least a little business from Port Aransas, said Glenn Martin, owner of Woody's Sports Center.

"There are some people going offshore from Packery Channel who didn't buy bait or gas or something in Port Aransas," said Martin, who was mayor of Port Aransas from 1998 to 2004. But Martin doesn't think the channel will be disastrous for Port Aransas.

"They'll take a small slice of the pie, but I don't think they're going to kill us," Martin said. "We're too well positioned in the market." Port Aransas has stronger public facilities in the works such as an 18-hole golf course and parkland at Charlie's Pasture, Martin said.

Charlie Zahn said Packery won't strongly impact Port Aransas one way or another in an economic sense.

"I think our businesses are established, and I think the people who come to Port Aransas to fish, to stay to use our beaches and all, are going to continue to come," said Zahn, chairman of the Port Aransas Parks and Recreation advisory board.

The opening of Packery Channel also will benefit the entire region because it will promote greater water circulation between the Gulf of Mexico and the Laguna Madre, creating a healthier ecology for sea life, Zahn said. Better ecology means a better economy in a region where so much tourism depends on the environment.

Mike Nugent said he believes Packery eventually will become clogged due to the natural transport of sand through local waters, eliminating the channel as competition for Port Aransas.

While the channel remains open, "I don't know how sizeable it would be, but I'd think there would have to be some sort of (negative effect for Port Aransas)," said Nugent, president of the Port Aransas Boatmen Association. "Port Aransas is so congested now, if they have some sort of infrastructure, if there is a marina, then they're going to be buying their stuff over there."

Susan Powell, managing co-owner of the Back Porch Bar in Port Aransas, said she doesn't see Packery helping or hurting Port Aransas. For one thing, she said, larger boats with tall tuna towers coming from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway won't be able to get under the State Hwy. 361 bridge to enter the Gulf through Packery Channel.

"We're still king of offshore fishing on the Gulf coast of Texas," Powell said. "No one can touch us."

Asked about bridge clearance, Smith, the engineer in charge at Packery, said, "anything more than 18 feet from the waterline is probably going to be marginal." Also, he said, the clearance can change up to two feet with normal tides.

John Price, owner of Island Boat Works, said he believes Packery will help Port Aransas

"Any development, any promotion that they do for development down there, that brings people in that don't know the area, and they will likely visit Port Aransas while they're in this area," Price said. "And we're much better able to capitalize on them at this point. We have more restaurants, more tourism infrastructure.

"We have a tourist atmosphere on this island," Price said. "It's going to take (Padre Island) a long time to overcome just being a bedroom community for Corpus Christi."

AT A GLANCE

The official dedication and opening of the Packery Channel on Padre Island will be at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 6. The public is invited to the ceremony, which will be at the channel's north jetty, just south of Zahn Road.